The present invention relates to a method for controlling printing in a printing apparatus using a continuous forms paper and a printing apparatus, more particularly, to a method for controlling printing in the case of a fraction of lines to be printed in a page, owing to the relations between a page length of a sheet of paper or a length of a page to be printed and a resolution.
With the requirements for multifunction printing apparatus in recent years, there have been required higher resolution in printing and diversification of printing paper sizes applicable to the printing apparatus. In attempting to provide the printing apparatus with high resolution and applicability of diversified sizes of paper, there can be conceived that the fractions are produced in the number of lines in a page to be printed, owing to the relations between various resolutions to be set and the page length of a sheet of paper or the length of a page to be printed. It is therefore necessary to dissolve how to control the printing in the case where a fraction occurs in the number of lines in a page to be printed.
In the conventional printing apparatuses, there have been used as the continuous forms paper those having the integer inches, for example, 8 inches, 11 inches, 12 inches, or 81/2 inches, 101/2 inches, in the page length of a sheet of paper (lengthwise size). In other words, a paper feed control unit in the conventional printing apparatus is 1/2 inch, and the paper page length of continuous forms paper is in the unit of 1/2 inch. As the printing resolution, those used are of 240 dpi, 300 dpi, 400 dpi, etc.
In these combinations of the paper page length and the resolution, the calculated numbers of lines per page are all integers, without accompanying any fraction in the number of lines. For example, in case of printing on a continuous forms paper having a length of 8 inches or 81/2 inches in 240 dpi, the numbers of lines per page are 1920 (=240.times.8) lines and 2040 (=240.times.17/2) lines, respectively, without accompanying any fraction.
However, to meet the requirements of diversified paper sizes, it is conceivable to make the paper feed control unit of the printing apparatus for example 1/3 inch or 1/6 inch, and to use the continuous forms paper with the page length of 81/3 inches, 82/3 inches, 81/6 inches, etc.
Then, in case of printing, for example, on the whole page of 81/3 inch continuous forms paper in a resolution of 400 dpi, the calculated number of lines per page (number of dots, or number of scans) becomes 81/3.times.400 =3333.333 . . . lines, leaving a fraction of 0.333 . . . per page of printing.
Alternatively, it is conceivable to divide the page of the 81/3 inch continuous forms paper, for example, into two parts, and to use the respective half regions as one page portions. In such a case, the length of a printing page (printing page length) becomes 41/6 inches. In this case, assuming that the printing is made in a resolution of 400 dpi on each printing page, the calculated number of lines per page of the printing page becomes 41/6.times.400=1666.666 . . . lines, still leaving a fraction per page.
Accordingly, there is a problem how to control the printing in such a case, and this problem requires to be dissolved in order to make the paper feed control unit of 1/3 inch or 1/6 inch applicable.